The Reckoning by Michael Smorenburg

Author:Michael Smorenburg [Smorenburg, Michael]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: A Novella / Adventure / Thriller
Publisher: Qunard Publishing
Published: 2017-12-04T23:00:00+00:00

Chapter 6

“I’m very disappointed,” the Bosun told Chikunda with menace in his voice and a smile on his face. “To hear such terrible lies spread so openly... Now, I have promised you and your protector that I will not harm even a hair on your very curly head. Alas, my friend, somebody must pay when you tell lies to the mistress. The Bible says that there must be retribution. Alas, this charitable feeling I have towards you I cannot say extends to the woman you call Faith.” He paused dramatically. “That said, be a good man and bring for me the hippopotamus tail, it hangs on the hook third from left. Don’t you know, it makes a most satisfying sound against naked flesh.”

The Bosun had not mentioned Faith since he’d chained Chikunda by his throat collar to the ring set into the basement wall.

Chikunda had heard Faith’s frightened voice cry out only once from one of the rooms upstairs. The sound of it had outrage and fear knitted into its pattern, and the Bosun’s laugh that had followed—guttural and pitiless—had driven Chikunda to madness, slamming against his restraints, the steel collar bruising and tearing against his flesh.

“Off you go, be a good man. There is ample scope on that chain to do my bidding,” he instructed Chikunda sweetly.

Chikunda remained sitting on the floor, his back against the wall and arms about his knees, his eyes fierce as a wildcat in the night.

“The whelp still has spirit, I see? Would you make me speak twice to you? My request was a simple one, the task well within your capacity.”

Chikunda could not move, the hallucination of wrapping that restraining chain about the man’s bull neck and strangling the life out of him dominating his mind.

The Bosun read it perfectly.

“You think yourself equal to me in strength, boy? Imagine that in your desperate condition you could take me on? I would welcome it, but I have work to do, work made harder by your dereliction of duty and refusing a command. What is there to do but add a little more to the tally for retribution?”

He stepped into the makeshift dungeon, keeping a wary eye on the black man coiled with fury like a spring. In his hand, instead of the perpetual whip, he carried his heavy club and he kept up the talking.

“…Suggesting to that good lady that you are a baptized Christian?” He laughed to emphasize his contempt. “It worked once with my foolish Captain. It kept you out of the holds alright. But the man was unlettered and did not understand the nuance of English law, he only guessed at it from chatter with other captains. He misinterpreted it. I'm sorry to tell you that the British will not misinterpret their own laws. I am in my full right to retain you as my personal property.”

He lifted the rhino tail off its hook.

“They call it a sjambok,” he told Chikunda. “Very effective in explaining matters.” He wiggled the stiff hide and its tip cut the air with a whirr.

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